‘Further the said George Sprot remembers that in the summertide of 1601, the Laird of Restalrig had indented with the Lord Willoughby, then Governor of Berwick, concerning my Lord’s ship then built and lying at Berwick, whereof the Laird should have been equal partner with my Lord, and to take voyage with the said ship, either by the Laird himself, or some other person whom it pleased him to appoint . . . to pass to the Indies, the Canarys, and through the Straits, for such conditions as were set down in the indenture betwixt my Lord and him, which was framed by Sir John Guevara,’ Willoughby’s cousin, the kidnapper of Ashfield in 1599. Now this ship of Lord Willoughby’s, at all events, was a real ship; and here is a grain of fact in the narrative of Sprot. The ship was built by Lord Willoughby to protect English commerce from the piracies of the Dunkirkers. On March 28, 1601, he writes from Berwick to Cecil, ‘The respect of my country and the pity of those hurt by such’ (the Dunkirkers) ‘persuaded me to build a ship, and moves me now to offer to serve her Majesty at as reasonable a rate as any ship of 140 tons, with sixteen pieces of artillery, and 100 men can be maintained with. . . . If this offer seem good to you and the Council, my ship shall presently be fitted, if not I purpose to dispose otherwise of her’ (to Logan), ‘being not able to maintain her.’ (‘Border Calendar,’ ii. 738). On April 19, Willoughby wrote that he had pursued, with his ship, a pirate which had carried an English prize into the Forth. But he cannot, unaided, maintain the ship, even for one summer. On June 14, Willoughby ‘took a great cold’ in his ship, lying at the haven mouth, awaiting a wind, and died suddenly. On July 20, Carey says that his body has been placed, with all honourable rites, on board his ship. It appears, then, that Willoughby, unable to maintain his ship, and not subsidised by Government, in the summer of 1601 admitted Logan to a half of the venture, carrying great expenses. Logan settled the business at Robert Jackson’s house, in Bridge Street, Berwick, being accompanied by Sprot, Bower, and Matthew Logan. Matthew said privately to Sprot, ‘Wae’s me that ever I should see this day, that the Laird should grow a seaman! I wot not what it means, for it is for no good, and I fear this shall be one of the sorrowful blocks that ever the Laird made. It is true that I have oft thought that the Laird would pass away, for he is minded to sell all that he has, and would to God that he had never been born, what should he do with such conditions, to go or to send to the sea? He might have lived well enough at home. I find he has ever been _carried_’ (excited), ‘and his mind has ever been set on passing out of the country this year past,’ that is since the Gowrie affair.